The children shook their heads vigorously. He closed his knife and dropped it into his pocket. "Well, now first you want to see the dredges come in from the bay." He took them through the open front of the shed to the docks outside. The boats had gone out at three o'clock in the morning, he said, in the deep dark. They were coming in now heavily, loaded high with horny oysters, and Ez pointed out the rake-set iron nets with which the shellfish were dragged from their beds. "Got 'em out of bed good and early!" "I'd hate to have to eat 'em all," Jimmie said suddenly in his husky little voice. Everyone laughed, for the big rough shells were traveling into the oyster-house by thousands, on moving belts. Some shells looked as if they were carrying sponges in their mouths, but Ez said it was a kind of moss that grew there. Already the pile of unopened oysters in the shed was higher than a man. The shuckers needed a million to work on next day, Ez said. [Illustration: Watching the dredges] When the children had watched awhile, and the boatmen had asked their names, and how old they were and where they came from, Ez took them inside the shed to show them the handling of the newly shucked oysters. First the oysters were dumped into something that looked like Mrs. Albi's electric washer, and washed and washed. Then they were emptied into a flume, a narrow trough along which they were swept into bright cans that held almost a gallon each. The cans were stored in ice-packed barrels, and early next morning would go out in trains and trucks to all parts of the country. "How many pearls have they found in all these oysters?" Dick demanded in a businesslike voice. "Not any!" Ez said. "Why can't you eat oysters in months that don't have R in them?" asked Rose-Ellen. "You could, if there wasn't a law against selling them. It's only a notion, like not turning your dress if you put it on wrong side out. Summer's when oysters lay eggs. You don't stop eating hens because they lay eggs, do you? But now scram, kids. I got work to do." They left, skipping past the mountains of empty shells outside. Next day the children went to church school alone. The grown folks were too tired. And on Monday Dick and Rose-Ellen went up the road to the school in the little village.